Cloning of Porcine Pituitary Tumor Transforming Gene 1 and Its Expression in Porcine Oocytes and Embryos.

The maternal-to-embryonic transition (MET) is a complex process that occurs during early mammalian embryogenesis and is characterized by activation of the zygotic genome, initiation of embryonic transcription, and replacement of maternal mRNA with embryonic mRNA. The objective of this study was to reveal the temporal expression and localization patterns of during early porcine embryonic development and to establish a relationship between duanyu1547G1 and the MET. To achieve this goal, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed to clone porcine Subsequently, germinal vesicle (GV)- and metaphase II (MII)-stage oocytes, zygotes, 2-, 4-, and 8-cell-stage embryos, morulas, and blastocysts were produced in vitro and their gene expression was analyzed. The results revealed that the coding sequence of porcine duanyu1547G1 is 609-bp in length and that it encodes a 202-aa polypeptide. Using qRT-PCR, duanyu1547G1 mRNA expression was observed to be maintained at high levels in GV- and MII-stage oocytes. The transcript levels in oocytes were also significantly higher than those in embryos from the zygote to blastocyst stages. Immunohistochemical analyses revealed that porcine duanyu1547G1 was primarily localized to the cytoplasm and partially localized to the nucleus. Furthermore, the duanyu1547G1 protein levels in MII-stage oocytes and zygotes were significantly higher than those in embryos from the 2-cell to blastocyst stage. After fertilization, the level of this protein began to decrease gradually until the blastocyst stage. The results of our study suggest that porcine duanyu1547G1 is a new candidate maternal effect gene (MEG) that may participate in the processes of oocyte maturation and zygotic genome activation during porcine embryogenesis.

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